Sunday, April 5, 2015

E is for Electrolytes

A few summers back my parents hosted a block party, and somehow they ended up with a few cases of single serving sports drinks when the thing was over.

Since they had no use for them, they "gifted" them to me. You know that sort of "gift" don't you? The kind you're not allowed to refuse no matter how hard you try!


I wasn't thrilled about this at first - I mean this isn't exactly the sort of thing I would generally buy or consume. First of all it's full of sugar and artificial flavorings, it's a waste of money, and it comes in a single serving plastic bottle. An evil trifecta if ever there was one!


But I ended up with them so I decided to bring one along on a long bike ride and see what I thought.

Up until that moment I'd been a strictly water only girl on bike rides, but I pretty much became an instant sports drink convert. I mean, all of the above evilness still applies, but holy moly! When you're out on your bike for 4-5 hours at a time, replenishing calories and electrolytes really does make an impact in your stamina.

At that point I had a conundrum. I mean, to be gifted an evil beverage is one thing, but to actually go buy one is something completely different!

So I set out to see if I could come up with a recipe for making some myself.

I read a whole pile of stuff on the interwebs - including info from the World Health Organization - and I promptly got overwhelmed. Different people had very different views about how much of various salts and sugars one should use, and I started to get a bit paranoid about doing something "wrong."


But then I took a chill pill. I mean, we're talking about a drink to slurp while I'm on my bike, not life saving hydration therapy for some poor third world child with cholera or something. The difference in electrolytes from one recipe to the other was so trivial that one could easily more than make up for it by what one ate for dinner!

Soooo... after extensive obsessing, I settled upon this little formula. As near as I can figure it, the electrolyte balance is pretty close to that of a commercial sports drink.

First I mix up a salt solution including one part sea salt, one part Morton's Lite Salt (as opposed to the salt substitute - this one contains both sodium chloride and potassium chloride,) and one part baking soda (sodium bicarbonate.)

I store my little salt mixture in a jar, and when I'm ready to mix up a bottle of electrolyte drink I add a quarter teaspoon of the salt mixture, 3-4 teaspoons of sugar, and a slosh of lemon juice (a "slosh" comes out to about 2-3 tablespoons.) I dump that in the bike bottle and fill it up with filtered water, and voila! Salty lemonade!


My bike bottle is a bit larger than standard (27 oz as opposed to the standard 24,) so you might want to fiddle with the amounts a bit as well as adjusting for taste.

I don't generally bother with it in the winter time, but now that the warmer weather is here, this stuff is really a life saver!



19 comments :

  1. Interesting recipe, the baking soda came as a surprise. I've never had one of the sports drinks but my kids have. My youngest experienced horrible leg cramps multiple times a day from being on the football team when we lived in Arizona. I gave in a bought him a few of the sports drinks on the recommendation of his coach but that didn't work. I did research and found potassium was a key component so I upped his bananas, which wasn't easy because he already ate a lot of them and other fruits for hydration, nothing worked. Then one day he heard a football player used pickle juice to prevent cramping and viola it worked. I had intended to see if I could make a recipe myself but never got around to it. Oh and only dill pickle juice works.

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    1. Bizarre! I wonder what's in dill pickle juice? I know that magnesium is a big one for preventing cramps, but potassium too. Hmmm...

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    2. When I was a girl, our Girl Scout troop spent a long weekend in Palm Springs on a horseback riding trip, in late May. It was 114 degrees F in the shade. Many of us suffered from heat exhaustion and they brought an MD over to the house where we were staying. He recommended we all eat dill pickles, lots of dill pickles. I hadn't thought of that since, until Lois mentioned dill pickle juice.

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    3. That's just fascinating... I wonder what's in them.

      And Holy Moly! I can't even imagine trying to be outside in 114 degree weather! The hottest I've ever experienced was 105 and trust me I was glued to the air conditioner. Plus, I imagine there's much more humidity in Florida than Colorado. It's a good thing you all survived!

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  2. Does Catman also use your Electrolyte drink?

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    1. Um.... no. I'm really starting to believe that CatMan is a camel. Seriously, we'll ride for 4 hours and the man barely drinks a few sips of water! He claims he drinks a bunch when he gets home, but just doesn't like do drink while he rides. I don't know how he does it because I would be physically incapable of such a feat.

      It could be that he's on a number of medications for his neurological issues - I know that on in particular makes you retain water. But personally, I'm stickin' with my camel theory!

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  3. Happy to hear you found a solution that works for you! I don't drink gatorade (or do anything strenuous enough to warrant making a homemade version) but your post made me think of a job my husband had years ago. He arrived on site his first morning and found a whole pallet of expired gatorade on the warehouse floor. The strangest thing. His supervisor said all the employees were encouraged to take it home to use it up and we had stockpiles of gatorade at our house for months after that. Plus he'd give it away to relatives, friends, anyone who stopped by. I was glad when it finally ran out! :)

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    1. Interesting! I still have a few bottles of the stuff I got from my parents and it's technically expired - but seriously, how does water, sugar, salt and artificial flavors go bad? Anyhow, I'm saving it for this summer when it's scorching and I'll need all the extra fluids I can get!

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  4. Wow, that's great that you figured out a recipe for your own sports drink. We aren't Gatorade fans by any means, but a couple of weeks ago, we all had a tummy bug and our diet consisted of Gatorade and jello. I found a flavor we could all tolerate--mostly, the commercial sports drinks are too sickeningly sweet for me. I'll have to bookmark this post in case I need an electrolyte beverage in the future!

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    1. I've only tried the one flavor that came from my folks - CatMan took a few sips and called it syrup. Of course, he calls my homemade version - which is significantly less sweet than the commercial kind "elephant piss" so we know where I stand! I don't think I could stand to drink nothing but the commercial stuff on a ride though, it would be way too sweet - maybe watering it down would work though.

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  5. Thanks for the recipe :) I love Grumpy cat.

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    1. Grump cat is master of the universe!!!

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    2. Oops... that was supposed to be GrumpY cat! I bet I just made him a bit grumpier with that one... :-)

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  6. When I was in college, I got hooked on Propel, for no good reason. After giving up that, I went cold turkey on sports drinks for awhile.

    Last summer, faced with a blistering hot day for teaching CyclingSavvy, I made my own drink -- probably similar to yours, but I think I used a bit of orange juice, too. I put that in one bottle and water in another. I also had some snacks on hand, but I do think the drink helped me make it through the day. Good idea using a salt with both sodium and potassium -- I'll have to remember that for next time!

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    1. Orange juice would be good to try. I stuck with lemon because it was what I had on hand, but you could probably use less sugar with orange juice. I may have to pick up some frozen concentrate and give it a go!

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  7. What a brilliant way to solve your moral dilemma, one I can relate to completely!

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    1. Yanno... sometimes my entire life feels like one giant moral dilemma - especially where feeding myself is concerned! :-)

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  8. Yes - we are a banana and water family and don't subscribe to sports drinks over here in the UK mainly because of their over-pricing - great to meet through the A to Z Challenge and I couldn't agree more with Grump Cat that lemonade is sure gonna suck:) Special Teaching at Pempi’s Palace

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    1. Bringing a banana on a ride is a very interesting idea. I have a weird allergic condition that can cause serious reactions when I combine food and exercise so I have a short but growing safe list of things I know are safe for me to have when I'm exercising. Perhaps I'll put bananas next on my list to test out.

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